Weekend Overview

I had a nice relaxing birthday yesterday. I didn't get to do much sewing/quilting in, but I did spend some nice time with my two best fellas!!! Trevor gave me this cute little Notebook computer.

It is smaller than what I am use to. The keyboard is much smaller and some of the keys I'm use to using and expect to be in one place are now somewhere else. I have made many typos and errors in my typing using the keypad, but I will master it!!!! My old laptop still has some good life left in it, but for some reason it just will not recognize my external/portable harddrive and camera memory card. It is still good for typing up my recipe collection and it does still recognize my printer. This little Notebook is great and small and portable. It is also very lightweight.

After William was put to bed, Mum took over the video monitor so Trevor and I could enjoy a nice relaxing dinner at The Keg restaurant. We shared a yummy yummy Mushroom Neptune appetizer. I ordered the New York Peppercorn sirloin steak with a twice baked potato. It was soooooooooooooooooooooooo good!!! I was sooo stuffed after we ate. I kindly asked Trevor to carry me out of the restaurant to the car, but he didn't seem to enthused about doing that!!! LOL

Saying that, I did get down in my sewing room for about an hour and played around with some free motion quilting design samples. One of my favourite places to get ideas for free motion is here at Free Motion Quilting. I am trying to get some ideas how to quilt the red strippy lap quilt. After trying a few, I ended up going with one of the designs I found in my own design books.



So tonight I cut out all 36 paper squares and got them ready to be placed on the white squares. I also cleaned up some of the red threads on the back of the quilt.



Tomorrow evening I will try and layer the quilt together.

I left the sewing room early so I could watch the Academy Awards (which I am watching while typing this) Already The King's Speech just one an award. They won best script. I am sooo excited!! I just loooooooooooved that movie!! I also loooove Colin Firth!!!!! Right from the first movie I saw him play in "Pride and Prejudice, I was hooked on his acting.

So while watching the awards, I plan to finish the last bit of binding on the blue lap quilt I made last month.

Quiltingly Yours

Andrea

Crumb Quilt Update and a Very Nice Giveaway

All 48 centre blocks are now finished!!! wooo hoooooooooooo!!!!

I finished quilting the last 10 blocks tonight and then started the process of cutting out and prepping the 28 triangle designs!







They are now all set and ready to be quilted! The quilting on this quilt is going alot faster than I anticipated!

Along with tomorrow being "Scrap Saturday" and the last Saturday working with reds, it is also my birthday. I have never really been a big birthday celebrating gal. I don't make a huge deal over my birthday. I don't know why. Trevor is taking tomorrow off work and is taking me to one of my favourite restaurants for supper. I just loooooooooooove a good steak dinner, and I am looking forward to a nice big juicy steak from The Keg!!!!

Hopefully I'll get to spend a few hours in my sewing room tomorrow afternoon to work on my red strippy quilt top. I want to get the batting and backing ready to cut out, and layer. I also have to come up with a free motion quilting design to quilt on it.

I also want to share with you a great giveaway over at Leona's beautiful blog. The giveaway is for some beautiful fabrics and book from Kathy Davies Studios. Go take a peek and best of luck to you should you try your luck at the chance to win!

Well once again it is midnight and I'm ready to head out of cyber space and under the quilts for a nice long sleep! Good night to you all and chat with you soon!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

I am slowly going crazy!!!!

Yep.. the past two nights I have been free motion quilting my big crazy crumb quilt!!! I now have 36 white blocks quilted and I have 12 more to go.



After that I have 28 triangles to quilt and then two 5 inch wide borders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(hmm weird.. it wasn't sideways when I took the photo... ooh well, these are my border patterns.. hard to see in the packaging, but will show it to you when I start the borders later on)

wooooopieeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! And to think I also have to remove all the paper from the designs too!!! yeeee hawwwwwwww!!!!


(removing the paper bits a little at a time so its not so much at once!!!)

I'll be ready for the rubber room!!!! And to think while I was quilting it last night I was coming up with my next INSANE idea for a quilt!!!!!!!! I have ALOT of small scraps! But more on that at another date.

I spent most of today taking Mum around to get some groceries and other errands she needed to get done. We took William along with us to get a change of scenery from the living room play area, get some sun on his face and nice winter air in his lungs. We were gone from 10:30 this morning and got home at 6pm tonight!! Whew!!! Now my boy is all snuggled up in his jammies in la la land and Momma is about to head back to the sewing room for another hour or two of quilting time!

Tomorrow, William and I are going to meet up with some of our playgroup Mommies and their babies for an hour of swimming. After that William and I are heading to another friend's house to see her little 1 month old little girl and have a mini playdate!

Tomorrow night, I will probably get back to my red strippy quilt top and prepare the quilt top for what I will free motion quilt on it. Saturday is the last 'RED' weekend for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I want to get a good handle on it so it will be ready for machine quilting after my crumb quilt is quilted. I wonder what next month's scrap colour will be?????? Can't WAIT to find out and get crackin'!


Peek a boo!!!! Good night everyone!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Monday update

I believe I mentioned recently that my goal for this week was to get in as much machine quilting and binding as I can. Well last night I decided to haul out my crumb quilt I layered last month and get a start on it.



I am practicing as much as I can with free motion quilting. I just love how it looks and I love to challenge myself whenever possible.

I had to take out an extra table to keep the quilt from dragging too much. It is a queen size quilt and a big one too!



Here is the design I am going to quilt on each of the white squares.





And here is how it looks on the quilt.



Last night I managed to get 12 blocks quilted. I was so pleased! I hope to get at another few blocks this evening. One of my former students started selling fabrics and other quilt notions from her home a few years ago. Last year she started to stock some really nice free motion border designs. I think I will see what ones she has and pick one up to do the borders. But that is a while to go yet.

This is a short posting today as I hear my little boy getting bored in his exersaucer. His best time of the day is the morning. He has so much energy and silliness!!! He loves to watch some of his favourite tv shows in the morning on Treehouse such as "Rolie Polie Olie", "Guess with Jess", and "Bob the Builder." He has his very own "Bob the Builder" in his great uncle Bob! He calls him Bob Bob!!! My uncle is a fabulous carpenter and he has done some great things to the house including a beautiful front patio and a huge back patio!!!!

Well I'm off and running again... Toodles!!!! Hope you all have a great day and a productive quilting day if possible!!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Strippy Quilt Top DONE!!!

Well here it is!!!!!!!!! wooo hoooo!!! the top is finished and ready to layer and quilt!



I had alot of fun playing with the red fabrics for this quilt. To continue with the strippy effect, I also made the second border strippy and I also have the binding made in strippy format too!!!

Several of you asked how the Monopoly game went the other night...



well.. I whipped butt!! Yep!!! I didn't give him a leg to stand on!!! LOL. He took the loss well. I only managed to own one set of streets, but I also added 3 and 4 houses to each street!!!



Poor fella, he had to mortgage some of his properties to pay me and everything. He said Sunday morning "so I suppose you are gonna gloat and brag to everyone on your blog you won right?" I said "but of course!!! how often do I actually win a game?"!!! LOL he rolled his eyes at me and went to play with our son! Luv ya hon!!!

While watching Will yesterday after for an hour before supper, I managed to finish another one of my sewing themed embroidery blocks. I think I have 2 or 3 left to complete!!!!



This week's plan of attack in the sewing room is to do some catch up on machine quilting and binding. I have 6 sets of placemats to quilt and bind, need to complete the hand binding on last month's blue lap quilt, as well as a few other smaller projects.

But for now, its off to the living room to play with my son. We have been up since 7am this morning (his usual time to wake up). We both finished our breakfast, (well I'm still sipping on my coffee). I have the play compound set up for bambino and ready to go. At the moment he loves to play in his exersaucer while watching his favourite shows on TreeHouse. I don't have the tv on all day while he is playing. I'm not a big fan of tv myself, and I find if he looks at it for a while he looks like he is in a trance. So off the boob tube goes and we play with his toys.

BTW, he is soooooooooooooooo close to walking!!!! He is starting to take his first unassisted steps walking toward myself and Trevor. We are figuring by the end of this week he will be a little more steady on his feet. It won't be long now before we will be running after him!!! The baby gate at the top of my main entrance stairs goes up TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Friday Night Sew In and Scrap Saturday Update

Between last night and tonight I managed to get the red strippy quilt rows sewn together to make the main part of the quilt as well as get the first narrow white tone on tone border on.


(this is without the first white border)

I am now working on making a 2" strippy red border.





Once that border is on I'll put on a 4" white tone on tone border and the top will be complete.

I left my sewing room early this evening (9:30) to start up a game of Monopoly with Trevor.



I can't remember the last time I played that game!!! Last month we took a Sunday afternoon and spent a little time at Chapters. The three of us go there from time to get to grab a coffee (well William brings his own little milk and snack along) and we like to just relax and meander around the aisles of books and magazines. Normally I come out of it with either a quilt or recipe book/magazine. Trevor decided to pick up this monopoly game. He remembers having it when he was a kid but hasn't played it in ages. I too can't remember the last time I played the game. So tonight, I guess you can say Trevor and I are having a 'mini date' here at home. The wine bottle is opened and I can hear Trevor out in the dining room now taking the plastic wrap off the game box!

So without further ado, its off to kick Trevor's butt in Monopoly!!! LOL (although knowing how my track record is for games, its a very good chance .. make that GREAT chance, he will whip my butt in the game)!!! LOL Of course, you know what game piece I'll be using... yep that's right The Thimble!!!! :)

Tomorrow afternoon I mentioned to Trevor I wanted a few hours baby free to go back to play in my sewing room. I really am determined to complete the red strippy quilt top before the weekend is through!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Playing Catch Up

Because of one sick little boy I was unable to play with my red scraps during last Saturday's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. So tonight after bambino was put to bed I went down to my sewing room and took out the red strippy blocks and starting making the rows to the lap quilt.



By the time midnight came round I almost had all the rows sewn together. I started getting a bit tired, so decided to stop and will continue to work on it during the Friday Night Sew In. (err I'm into Friday now as it is 12:15am here.. so it will be 'tonight's sewing job lol)

This is all I really worked on today as this little cold I seemed to have been given by my sweet little boy has me with very little energy. I wouldn't call it a full fledge cold as it is just one really nasty sore throat, but it is the fact that I haven't the energy to get out of my own way!!! I spent much of the morning and afternoon in bed while Trevor watched Will. Hopefully I will have a good night sleep, and William will hopefully sleep through the night (knock on wood) and I feel a little better in the morning. I have to take Mum out to do a few errands.

Speaking of, Mum is doing well. She has to wear this big ugly boot for the next 6 weeks. She had the stitches taken out of her toe and foot last week and her surgeon said everything is healing well. She is starting to get a touch of cabin fever right now and just wants to get away from the four walls that are closing in around her. Its not that she is bored here at home. God knows between her sewing, quilting, cross stitching, reading and her love of playing in the kitchen she has PLENTY to do!!! But it is still good to just get out of your regular surroundings to see how the other people out there live!!!

Well its off to la la land for me again!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Winter!!!!!!! GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!

I'm officially SICK of winter now!!! I'm SICK of shoveling, SICK of snowfalls and SICK of all this incredibly high wind!!!!!!!!! We have winds as high as 125km/hr here tonight!!!!! I have a collection of candles and flashlights and matches all set and ready should we lose our power. The lights flickered a little bit earlier this evening, but stayed on. WHEW!! Glad of that since I had my embroidery machine working away and me working away on the Hot Chocolate Snowman bom block. I finished him tonight. I was determined to finish him this week. I hope to start the next snowman next week.



Here are two of the samples I played with tonight on my embroidery machine. I love coffee theme stuff!!! These are from the same collection of designs that I made my mug mats from last month.



Ohhh, btw, I wanted to share with you some GORGEOUS embroidery threads I won over on Susan's blog!!!! She had a giveway last month and I won!!!!!!! I NEVER win anything so I am soooooo excited about these threads!! I can't WAIT to play with them!




(don't they look delicious!!!!)

Tomorrow night my plan of attack is to work a bit on my red strippy block lap quilt that I am doing as part of the Rainbow Stash Challenge. I didn't get to play with my red fabrics for Scrap Saturday last weekend as William was sick with a cold. Speaking of, William is starting to come round. He still has a few sniffles and a bit of a cough, but he is getting back to his ole self again.


(He survived his first cold!!! My runny nose little boy is a real trooper)!!!


Meanwhile, I , on the otherhand, appear to be coming down with his cold. I have been dealing with a really bad sore throat the last two days. Tonight being a bit worse than last night. The last time I had a cold was 1 1/2 years ago. It was the week before halloween and I was pregnant on Will thinking I couldn't take any cold meds. Tonight I am popping a couple pills and hopefully it might give me a good night sleep. I don't wanna be sick. I have too much to do!!!!!!!!! Sigh.....

Well on that note, I'm off to get on my nice warm polor fleece jammies, throwing a dog on the bed and then burying down under my quilts on this cold and WINDY night. Sweet Dreams out there in blogland!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well most of my day was spent running errands and picking up some cold meds for my little boy. Day 4 of his cold and he is still feeling crappy. So far he has been sleeping through the night. I'm amazed since he wakes up coughing and crying but then falls back to sleep again.

I did make and decorate 3 1/2 dozen cupcakes though!!!




(This cupcake is just for you!!!!)

Well I made the cupcakes yesterday afternoon, and made the chocolate buttercream icing. But this morning when bambino woke up at 7am, I gave him his bottle and then got to work on the decorating. I brought in 2 dozen of the cupcakes to my friends at the office. Needless to say the "vultures" made a clean sweep of them!!! LOL!!! I love making up stuff from time to time and bringing it into work. Before I went off on mat leave, I use to put on a bread in the bread machine the night before and then take it into work the next morning. During Christmas I like to make up a little something special and during other times of the year. LOL just gives me an excuse to try out more baking! I don't think they mind or complain!

Trevor and I didn't do much for V Day. With a sick little boy its not easy to do much. However we did pick up some supper from our favourite Indian restaurant here in town. After supper, got little guy bathed and ready for bed. Trevor and I went out to shovel out Mum's driveway AGAIN!! Yep.. snow and blowing snow the other night, plus the snow plow resulted in more shoveling. I'll be happy when winter is over. I am sooooooo ready for summer!!!

Well gang... although its only a little after 10pm, I'm tired tired tired..... back and arm muscles are sore and tired. I think I'm gonna turn into bed early tonight. Trevor is on monitor patrol tonight.... hopefully a half decent sleep in for me in the morning.

I hope to also get back into the swing of sewing by Wednesday night for our sewing group. I'll probably work on my recipe binder again tomorrow night, then put it away for a week. I want to get back to a few outstanding sewing projects.

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

This Could Be a Long Night

My poor little boy is into Day 3 of his cold. He went to bed good tonight, but for the last hour or more he has been waking up coughing and crying, then settling down. A little while later he starts coughing and crying then settling down again... Just waiting for when he wakes up and wants his Mommy to cuddle and rock him in the rocking chair.. Not sure how much sleep I'll get tonight with the monitor picking up his coughs and cries... Ahhh but that is Motherhood right!?!

This is a short note as I am just sooooooooo tired right now to do much more tonight. It is already after midnight. I didn't get to play with my red strippy blocks this weekend as I was hoping to. Between shovelling the driveway almost every night the last few nights (although not tonight as it is FReeeeeeezZZZING out there with the wind and blowing snow.. with the windchill factor it is around -21 degrees celcius!! FORGET THAT!) By the time I finish shoveling for the night it is around 9:30 or 10 and I don't have much energy to get up and down from the sewing machine to the iron to the cutting board. Not to mention, with all my scrap booking stuff out for my recipe binders I can't get near my sewing machine LOL


(The red scrappy block project is in the bottom of those two clear plastic containers left of my knitting basket)!!!!

I still felt I needed to do something for a bit of "me" time after spending most of the day with William, I have been working on my recipe binders. Last night I started my "Fish, Pasta and Rice" binder.



I managed to finish the Fish part of it tonight, and pulled all the pasta and rice/couscous/orzo recipe cutouts I did make over the past little while to get ready to post in the binder. A few of my readers emailed me asking if I would post a couple more photos of my inserts and how I am making my recipe cutouts look. So here are a few of them!


(One of my own photos of this ooooh so yummy salmon recipe, along with the recipe handwritten by a good friend of mine who shared this recipe with me)


(a couple cutouts .. the small one from a book I photocopied, the larger one a recipe from one of my FAVOURITE websites, Allrecipes.com


(got a little crazy with the embellishing and added a pretty flower)!!!

I still need to go back and add some embellishing to some of the pages, as well as some personal notes. I also want to find some really good quotes about food and eating. I see these things in other recipe books I have and find them really cute!!

Anyway, that's it for me tonight.... I am thinking of scrapping a bit more tomorrow with my binder and then by Tuesday I hope to get back to my sewing again.. I have alot to get done for this month!

BTW, since it is now Monday here in my neck of the woods.... HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Not Much Sewing This Week

I thought I would get a bit more sewing in this week, but other things took priority. One of the biggies being my poor sweet William is experiencing his first cold. But I must say he is a real little trooper and handling it very well! Despite a runny nose and a little chest cough, he is all smiles and laughs and too busy playing. He has a few moments of wanting to be extra cuddled and loved, but he is still taking his naps at his usual times and still has a good appetite and no fever!!!! Hope this keeps up! I gave him some infant Advil before bedtime so I hope this helps him have a good sleep tonight.

The other big thing was a couple of nasty snow storms!!!



This week we had another 40 cm of snow dumped on us!!! With Mum unable to shovel out her own driveway as she usually do, Trevor and I have been taking turns shovelling. He mostly takes care of our driveway and area, while I am shovelling Mum's driveway. Although he did help a few times with Mum's space too. Tonight we are both a bit sore and tired from all the shovelling. The banks of snow are so high now (wayyyyy over our heads) its very hard to throw the snow up over the tops! I hear on the news tonight there is another possible 2 more snow systems coming our way.. one on Sunday and one on Tuesday..... SIGH................ I want SUMMER!!!!!!!!

The other night after shovelling, I did not have the energy to blink let alone play in my sewing room. So I set up the bathroom for a nice "Spa for ME night"! This is how I like to relax in my tub!!!



LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of bubbles!!!! Lots of candles, my nice smelly lotions and body washes, a good book and of course a nice glass of wine!!!!!!!!!

ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Soaking in the tub really relaxes the muscles.



Had Trevor not been working tonight, I would have taken another one of these baths. Unfortunately, that would be the one time I got in the tub, and then the baby cried!!!!! When we are both home, Trevor can take the monitor and take care of Will should he need something while Mommy had her "Tub Time".

When I did have a bit of time to unwind and play, I decided instead of sewing I wanted to get a start on re-organizing my recipes and setting up my food binders. I decided to start with an easy one and got to work on my "Veggie" binder.




(my trusty monkey pen to use on my binders... William loves when I tickle his face with it)!!!

I broke it down into various vegetables; potatoes, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, mixed veggie, etc. I took out my scrapbooking papers and embellishments and got to work.





After shovelling for yet another hour tonight, I only got to spend about a half hour on my veggie binder.



I am almost finished this one. Although I still need to go back to do some extra embellishing and making it more cute!!!! For now, its just the organizing. I'm trying to decide what binder to do next. I'm leaving the Chicken and the Dessert binders to last cause they are going to take a long time and they are gonna be HUGE!!!!

Tomorrow is Scrap Saturday. I am hoping to get back to my red strippy quilt and get the quilt top rows made and put together at least. But then that depends, I still have to do a little more shovelling of Mum's driveway. Now that I have the stuff the snow plow put into her area, I need to take her car out of her driveway and into ours so that I can get rid of the snow that drifted in under the car as well as widen out the driveway it self cause right now you need to suck in your breath to get the car in!!! UGH!!! Did I mention I HATE this part of winter????

Well its late again, and I am ZONKED!!! I need to get some sleep badly!!!! I'll try to take some photos of the snow banks around our house and the neighbourhood in the next day or so and post here!!!!

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea

Good Bye Size 10... helloooooooooooo Size 5!!!!

Yep... that's right!! Size 5!!!!!!!!!!!! woooo hoooooooooo!!!!



I mentioned yesterday I was going out to do a bit of shopping. Well, I decided to start picking up some new dress pants for when I returned to work after my maternity leave come the first week of May.



After my surgeries back in October, to date I have lost 25 pounds!!! That is also pre-pregnancy!!!! The last time I weighed in (which was last month at the family doctor's office), I was 113lbs!!!! I will weigh myself again on Thursday at my next doctor appt. Now, this is NOT the way I would suggest losing weight!!!! It resulted in a HUGE scar across my belly and my digestive system not the way it use to be.. but hey on the up side of things.. I'm into a SIZE 5 pant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


(of course what's a new outfit without some bling to pretty it up!!!)

I also picked up a couple new CDs to add to my little collection in my sewing room. I love to play my music while working away. Lately I have been picking up some new CDs here and there. These are my two new purchases... The Mamma Mia one is AWESOME!





Last night after bambino went off to sleep, I went back to my sewing room for a few hours. In the span of 2 1/2 - 3 hours, I managed to get almost all of the placemats I made last week layered and ready for quilting.



I also cut out the 36 white tone on tone squares for the Red Strippy Block quilt.



I cleaned up (as in getting the markings of it) the last sewing motif embroidery block.



And layered the second Coffee mug mat I did on my embroidery machine.



Tonight's goal is to maybe either do a bit of machine quilting on those placemats, or work on the Hot Chocolate Snowman BOM.

We are expecting another nasty snow storm tonight... upwards to 30cm of snow!! blowing winds and just an all out crappy evening. The forecast predicts it won't hit til later this afternoon, so I think I'm going to bundle myself and William up later this morning to run out and finish a few more errands I didn't get to do yesterday, ooh and a trip to Michaels!! I want to make some fancy cupcakes for tomorrow night's Sewing Group!!! I want to pick up some cute embellishing things!! I also want to head to the Bulk Barn to gather some snacks for the impending storm!! need my gummy candy stash built up in my sewing room!! LOL

Quiltingly Yours
Andrea